I am now going to teach you to become a YouTube Search Ninja. (that’s an official title)
Many people don’t know there are hundreds of educational videos you can access for free on YouTube.
Part of the problem comes from the fact that some are great, and some are crap. So sorting out the useful videos can be a challenge.
Here are some tips for searching YouTube to find great lessons and advice for your project management career.
Ready to become a YouTube search ninja? Let’s go.
Find Lectures, Presentations, and Webinars, Oh My!
While many shorter videos are still very valuable, if you are looking for a deep-dive into important topics, this is the way to go.
Simply enter your search term followed by a comma and then the word ‘long’.
For example:
- project management, long
- project management career, long
- agile, long
- project schedule, long
Playlists
Playlists on YouTube can be created by anyone. You can put your own playlist together so you can save videos you want to come back and watch when you have more time and learn about a particular topic.
To search YouTube playlists specifically, simply enter your search term followed by a comma and then the word ‘playlist’
For example:
- project management, playlist
- project management career, playlist
- pmp exam, playlist
- work breakdown structure, playlist
Channels
Channels are another way videos are organized on YouTube. Some channels are great, others are a complete waste of your time.
But once you find some good channels, you’ll have access to lots of great videos through that channel
To search YouTube channels specifically, simply enter your search term followed by a comma and then the word ‘channel’
For example:
- project management, channel
- project management career, channel
- pmp exam, channel
Extreme Specificity
If you have a lot of results for your search, and want to get even more specific, here’s another ninja trick.
When you preface your search with ‘allintitle:’ it will only return records with your search term in the title of the video.
This can be really useful for sorting through the noise. For example:
- allintitle:project management
- allintitle:project management career
- allintitle:pmp exam
Kill What You Don’t Want
Sometimes you want to slash away those results which are not helpful at all. You can kill them easily, by adding a ‘-’ and then the keyword you want to exclude from your search.
For example:
- pmp exam -boot camp
- project management -advanced
- project management -introduction -fundamentals -started
Filter By Age
With some topics, you want the latest and greatest information available. With the PMP exam for example, using training videos from 3 years ago may lead you astray. To filter by age of the videos use ,’today’, ‘this week’, ‘this month’.
For example:
- pmp exam, this month
- project management, this week
- project management lecture, today
Now You Are A YouTube Search Ninja
Now to bring it all together, you can use these techniques in combination for extremely targeted and powerful searches on YouTube and find exactly the type of project management training you are looking for.
For example:
- allintitle:agile -bi ,long ,this month
- allintitle:project management -introduction, long
- allintitle:pmp exam -ultimate, long
So do yourself a favor now you have the skills to conquer the YouTube world. Turn off the television, and get yourself some education online, for free via YouTube.
P.S. If you try out these tips and like what you find, or have other tips to share with our ninja clan, please leave a comment!
Josh Nankivel Blog: http://pmStudent.com Training: http://learn.pmStudent.com
Recommended PMP Training: http://GetPrepCast.com
I love ninja search skills!